Aleria's Adventures

The 2025 Hurricane Season gets underway this Sunday with June's arrival. The season in both the Atlantic Basin and eastern and central Pacific runs through the end of November and is given a 60% chance by NOAA of being a more active than average season across the Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf of Mexico (aka America) and Caribbean -- but a 50% chance of a normal season in the eastern and central Pacific.  Here's a link to the NOAA release on the 2025 hurricane season and a more technical description of the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season forecast from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.  This is a link to the discussion of the 2025 Central Pacific hurricane season. The Eastern Pacific has already seen the formation of the first tropical storm named Alvin, which is heading for Baja but is expected to dissipate in three days. For monitoring of the East Pacific hurricane potential, follow this link .  NOAA will be issuing  updates to the coming season's tropic...

  Crossing oceans on a small sailboat is not for everyone. As I was home alone and reading about AI, I started wondering what AI would say about the pursuit. Alex was down in Kilrush working on Aleria. Her mast has been pulled and he was removing all the winches. She's having a bit of a refit.  As I was thinking about it, I happened upon a notice that Google AI, formerly called Gemini, is now called DeepMind. I decided to test its intelligence by asking a simple but complex question. This is the response to the question, "Why do people sail across oceans on small boats?" Google AI, formerly Gemini now DeepMind Why do people sail across oceans in small boats? People sail across oceans in small boats for a variety of reasons, often driven by a combination of personal motivations and the allure of the sea. Here are some of the most common factors: • Challenge and Adventure: Ocean sailing, especially in a small boat, presents a significant physical and mental challenge. Sai...

  As Alex is now ICC Rear Commodore for the West, we are closely involved with events and activities organised by ICC throughout the year. He recruited Maeve and Louis Keating to help organise the Christmas lunch. For years it had been held in Kinvarra, Co Galway, but the last time they ran out of space and several people had to be split from the group and seated downstairs. That didn't go down well. Besides we like to mix it up a bit and experience new venues around Ireland. Maeve and Louis Keating were enlisted to help out, as we wanted to move the event further south to capture some of the folks who might have not come north in a while. They booked Gallagher’s Restaurant in Bunratty, Co Clare. It turned out to be a brilliant venue. It's just down the road from Bunratty Castle and the Folk Village, which had a magical holiday vibe. It was packed with Christmas celebration groups and children visiting Santa (there were six of them in the Village).  We had a nook all to oursel...

Approaching Bofin over Connemara This week, the forecast was for a full week of settled weather. There would be little wind, so we knew we'd have to motor a lot. We've had strong southerlies, making it almost impossible to head south along the coast to County Clare. We'd have some swell, but the temps would be in the 50s (10C-13C). We elected to leave on Tuesday. I'd provision on Monday and we'd go aboard in the morning, settle in and leave around noon when we'd be close to half tide rising. Clew Bay was fine. We saw seals in the mussel field. I was able to make lunch in the lee of Clare Island. We'd be able to make it to Inishbofin before dark. We had a 2.5-metre swell, but it wasn't that bad in Middle Ground. Sort of washing machine-like motion. Alex took a Bonine in time. About 4.5 hours later, we had arrived. Day 1 went according to plan.  Our night in Bofin was uneventful, except it took us two attempts to anchor. We did not go ashore. It was mistin...